“Hello?” Jeff said.
There was no response.
He froze when he saw a familiar blue glow in the distance. The light was coming from hundreds of rods protruding from the hilltop.
The crowd marched past him like mindless zombies, shoulders and arms brushing him without care. Their faces were emotionless, their eyes glued to the poles like a ship captain fixated on a lighthouse.
Too terrified to move, he watched them pass in silence. Most of them were kids, but there were a few adults as well, men and women who looked to be his parents’ age. And they were all staring at the poles, transfixed.
He took a step forward only to be knocked to his knees. Through the dozens of passing human legs he saw something else—something not human.
One of them.
He should have known it was too good to be true. Why would the drone have dropped him off into a crowd of survivors?
These were not survivors, he realized. They were prisoners.
Jeff quickly pushed through the crowd until he burst out the other side. A set of claws tore through the air, narrowly missing his face. He jumped back, bumping into a hideous woman with thin, dark hair draped across her forehead. She tilted her head and gawked at him. And then she snapped out of her trance, her eyes softening.
“Come with me,” she whispered, ushering him forward with a filthy hand.
Jeff glanced over her shoulder. She was the last person he wanted to go with, but behind her the Spiders were swiping at the prisoners with razor-sharp claws. He could hear the whoosh as the talons swept toward the humans.
He had no choice. It was either follow the witch of a lady or face the Spiders. He jogged to catch up with her and focused on the glowing rods in the distance. There was something weird about them. His eyes followed one of the poles into the sky. Every eight feet or so, a dark shape hung off the pole like a pod off a beanstalk.
A human shape.
He stopped dead in his tracks. There were hundreds of people on the poles; their heads slumped toward the ground, their arms hanging loosely at their sides.
Jeff felt a push from behind, but didn’t dare move. His heart thumped in his chest as he finally realized what was happening.
Another push from behind broke his trance. This time the shove was harder, and he lost his balance. As he regained his footing, he scanned the sky again. There were rows and rows of them. Poles as far as he could see. And the Spiders were herding the prisoners right to them.
* * *
Emanuel watched the marines lay their gear out on a metal table in the mess hall. They didn’t have much. Certainly not enough to face an advanced alien race. But the aliens could be killed. This he knew, and knew well.
As he checked his own gear, Emanuel thought of the growing feud between Overton and Sophie. Both of them were at their boiling points, and both of them were starting to worry him. It was Overton he was most concerned about, though. The marine seemed as though he was getting reckless. Ever since he’d seen his men outside, something had changed. Like a light switch, something had flipped on inside him.
“Are we completely out of electromagnetic pulse grenades?” Overton snapped, scanning their gear like a drug addict looking for his last pill.
Emanuel considered something that might calm the marine down. “If my experiment works, you aren’t going to need them, Sergeant.”
Overton ran a hand over his freshly shaved scalp and jerked his chin toward Emanuel. “I don’t like surprises. Whatever you have up your sleeve, I want to know about it, now!”
Emanuel studied Overton from a distance. The man’s temper was definitely spiraling out of control.
“I get that I’m not one of your men and that you don’t trust me,” Emanuel said, standing his ground. “But if I were you, I would have a little—”
Overton tossed his pack on the table and took a step toward Emanuel, spit flying out of his mouth. “You’re exactly right. You aren’t one of my men. Which makes you a liability. How do I know your weapon will work?”
Emanuel regarded Overton with a cocked brow. Now the man was starting to piss him off. Maybe I didn’t think this through, he thought, crossing his arms. But there was no turning back.
An awkward silence filled the room as the two men stared at each other. “It will work,” Emanuel said. “This is our best shot at getting your men back, and rescuing Jeff. A successful field test might even put us in a position to help the other Biospheres as well. Maybe we can even find that survivor who’s been trying to contact us.”
Overton narrowed his eyes and then nodded. “Guess I have to trust you, don’t I?”
Emanuel wasn’t sure if the man was looking for an answer, but he wasn’t going to give Overton any more of his time. Faking a smile, he walked back to the table and grabbed his pack.
“When are you leaving?”
Sophie’s voice startled him; he hadn’t heard her approach. He turned to face her with the same smile he had extended to Overton, but it quickly faded when he saw her face. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes that added a decade to her features.
He felt an instant wave of guilt. Like Overton, she was close to her breaking point, and here he was, preparing to leave her. On top of everything else, he knew she wasn’t sleeping. She hadn’t complained of any more dreams, but he knew she was still having them. The past few nights she’d kicked him awake as she tried to escape from whatever was chasing her. Every time he had asked her about the dreams, she’d denied having them. Emanuel didn’t have the heart to argue with her about it. Did it really matter anymore? Was there anything her dreams could tell them that they didn’t already know?
“We’re heading out in fifteen,” Overton said. “Your boyfriend here was just about to explain how his weapon works.”
Emanuel glanced at Sophie and quickly turned away. He had to finish gathering up his gear. There wasn’t much time, and he wanted to make sure the weapon was fully charged before they left. She followed him back to the CIC, where the hunk of metal sat plugged into the mainframe.
“Alexia, is the RVAMP ready to go?” Emanuel asked as soon as the lights turned on.
“Yes, Dr. Rodriguez. Fully charged and one hundred percent operational,” she replied over the PA system.
“Excellent. I’m going to need all the juice I can get.”
“Are you going to explain what you have in mind?” Sophie asked, swiping a strand of blond hair out of her brown eyes. There was no hope, no spark left in them. His Sophie was insatiably curious, but the woman who stood before him now just looked exhausted.
Emanuel paused. He pursed his lips, thinking about his response.
“Why won’t you let me help you? I feel worthless, Emanuel, sitting here worrying about the fate of our team. And I have to deal with that asshole,” she said, pointing in the direction of the mess hall. “I need to immerse myself in my work again.”
Emanuel took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Sophie, you aren’t worthless. It’s just . . .”
“It’s the dreams, isn’t it? You think I’m going crazy.”
“Not at all,” he said. “And your dreams have helped the team more than my device will. It’s just—”
The crackle of static over the speakers interrupted him before he could finish. “Doctor Rodriguez, where are you? We’re ready to move. Report to Biome 1,” Overton barked.
“I need to get going, Sophie. I’m sorry,” Emanuel said, throwing the straps over his shoulders and hoisting the device onto his back.
“Please be careful,” she said, standing on her toes to brush her lips across his. “Come back to me.”
The last time they’d had a conversation like this, it had been her leaving, not him. This time they didn’t even have time for proper good-byes.
“I will, Sophie. I love you,” he whispered. “And my weapon is going
to work.” He held her for a moment, marveling at how slight and fragile she felt in his arms. And then she was gone, the door to their personnel quarters slamming behind her down the hallway.
CHAPTER 8
OVERTON stomped on the pedal, and the Humvee lurched across the tarmac and onto the road.
“Take it easy!” Emanuel shouted over the groan of the engine. “You don’t want to attract any attention, do you?”
Overton didn’t reply. Emanuel wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t heard him or because the sergeant didn’t care if the Organics found them. The marine had a serious case of bloodlust, and he wouldn’t be happy until he had something to shoot.
Emanuel looked out the window. The dead landscape surrounded them on all sides. White pine tree skeletons lined the slopes, shriveling under the scorching sun.
He looked at his mission clock and saw the temperature in the right-hand corner.
One hundred and one degrees.
The temperature was rising, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even if they managed to defeat the Organics, the planet was doomed. Emanuel felt an anger growing inside him. He pounded the side of the door with his fist. His armored hands dented the cheap plastic lining. Typically, he was the level-headed one on the team. When Saafi had been killed and Timothy had lost his mind, Emanuel had remained calm. But even he could only take so much.
Bouma turned around to peer at him. “Hey man, you okay?”
Emanuel smiled thinly, even though the corporal couldn’t see his face through his visor. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Keep an eye out for drones,” Bouma said, turning back to look out the filthy windshield.
They sat in silence the entire way into Colorado Springs, scanning the landscape around them for signs of life, but their HUDs revealed only death. Emanuel hadn’t seen the desolation firsthand for weeks, and the sight sickened him. The empty cars lining the road, the shriveling trees and bushes, the dry lakebeds and streams—the world as they knew it was gone.
“How much farther?” Overton asked.
Bouma pulled out his tablet and swiped the screen. “ETA five minutes.”
Overton turned the steering wheel sharply to the right and pulled into a deserted gas station. An abrupt blast of wind hit the passenger side of the truck, peppering the exterior with small rocks. The metal pings sounded like hail, something none of them would ever hear again.
Overton did a quick sweep of the area before he killed the engine.
“Looks clear. Remember, don’t fire your weapons unless you have no choice. We don’t want to draw any attention to our location or waste any ammo,” Overton said, looking down at his rifle.
“We better move. A storm is coming,” Bouma said, watching a cloud of dust swirling at the end of the street.
Another gust of wind slapped Emanuel’s window.
“Let’s go,” Overton whispered. His door clicked open, and a second later he was sprinting toward the gas station.
“You heard the man,” Bouma said, opening the door and jumping onto the pavement.
Emanuel found himself alone in the truck. He scanned the street one more time for aliens and, with a long sigh, followed the marines into the parking lot.
* * *
For what seemed like hours, they trekked across the barren landscape, hiding in empty buildings and crouching behind abandoned cars. There was no sign of the Organics: no orbs, no patrols of Spiders, nothing. It was eerily quiet.
Overton swept his scope across the empty streets and realized how grossly underprepared they were. Before the invasion, he’d have had real-time data from field specialists and satellite imaging of the area fed directly into his HUD. Now all he had to guide him through battle were his instincts. They were low on ammo, with each of them carrying only one extra magazine. To make things worse, they were out of electromagnetic pulse grenades.
He moved his scope to the skyline. A red crosshair zigzagged across his HUD, searching for hostiles. It came back negative, but he didn’t lower his gun. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but his gut told him to take a second look. A brief blast of static burst over the com. “We should get moving,” Bouma said.
“Stand by,” Overton ordered, his boot twisting in the dirt. They were on the edge of a highway. A small trail of smoke rose from a multivehicle crash in the right-bound lane. The remains of the wreckage clogged the road, and with the drifting smoke it was almost impossible to see the twisted metal frames of cars and . . .
Overton paused. There was something else among the wreckage. Zooming in, he centered the crosshairs on the smoke’s source. The accident had to be recent. But how could that be?
With several blinks, he narrowed in on a set of warped blades protruding out of the mess of twisted metal, and then he could see the shape of what had once been a helicopter. The aircraft was hardly recognizable, but there were two familiar letters on the dented door of the craft.
N . . . T . . .
“Hold your position,” he said over the com.
Before the others could protest, Overton was on the move. The sergeant climbed over the concrete barrier lining the road and navigated past the empty cars with his pulse rifle shouldered. Normally he wouldn’t deviate from the main objective of a mission, but there was a possibility, however remote, that the NTC helicopter was carrying weapons—weapons they desperately needed.
It was worth the risk.
He stopped a few feet away from the smoldering wreckage. After scanning the road one more time for contacts, he peeled back the twisted metal door of the cockpit. It was empty, and there was no sign of the pilot. Nothing to tell him where the helicopter was heading or how recently the crash had taken place.
“Shit,” he said, beginning to regret his decision to leave the others.
Taking a cautious step forward, his boot caught in something sticky. He looked down and saw the pilot—or what was left of him.
Overton crouched down to examine the pile of slop. There wasn’t much to look at, just a sack of skin and the remnants of a blue uniform. The Organics had finished what the crash hadn’t been able to accomplish.
Poor bastard.
He continued on through the wreckage, knowing there was nothing he could do for the man. There was a time when he would never have left a scene without picking up dog tags or finding some other means of identifying the remains, but proper funerals were a thing of the past.
Kicking another heap of metal out of the way, Overton carefully slipped into the belly of the helicopter. It had been one of the larger models in NTC’s fleet, mostly used for transporting personnel and equipment. The crash had reduced it to the size of a sedan. Overton had to push hard to get inside.
When he finally squeezed into the cargo area, he smiled for the first time in weeks. Crates of supplies lined the sloped metal floor. Some of them had already spilled open, revealing dozens of gas masks, boots, Kevlar vests, and MREs. He combed through the open containers looking for weapons.
After several minutes of searching, his smile began to fade. There wasn’t a single gun or pulse grenade. He tore frantically into the remaining crates. The first was filled with night vision goggles. They were useless to him.
He tossed the crate aside and slowly pulled off the last two metal lids. The second crate was filled to the brim with small GPS devices. Jamming one in his pack, he looked into the final crate.
“Fuck,” he whispered. It was filled with more useless MREs.
Disappointed, he climbed out of the helicopter and scanned the site for anything else they could use. On the ground just outside the cockpit, a piece of smoldering metal covered the charred butt of a gun. He kicked the hunk of trash aside and found the pilot’s assault rifle. It was broken and badly burned, but a bag full of magazines and electromagnetic pulse grenades lay a few feet away. They looked unscathed.
Fin
ally, some luck.
He grabbed the pack and paused, silently thanking the pilot for his gear before racing back to his men.
* * *
Overton led the small team into a residential area overlooking the remains of a lakebed. Their drone’s beacon was half a klick away.
He needed to get a better view of the area to see what they were dealing with. This wasn’t the kind of reconnaissance mission he was used to. This time he wasn’t trying to evade an army of men—this time he was trying to evade an army of aliens, which meant there were no rules, and no allies he could call in for support.
With a swift kick, he smashed in the door to a three-story condo. The house was the tallest on the block and would give him the best vantage point to scan the dry lakebed to the north.
Inside, the condo appeared untouched. An expensive leather couch lined the north wall in the living room, a pair of matching pillows propped neatly against the armrests. An open magazine lay spread out on the dining room table next to an empty glass. He cleared the next room and started up the stairs.
As he moved up the steps, he saw a faint blue light from the hallway above. The glow formed a halo around the entry to the corridor, like a portal beckoning him forward.
With each step, an eerie sensation washed over him.
He ignored the feeling and shouldered his rifle.
He slowly inched down the hallway toward the light.
Clenching his teeth, he reached for the knob. He twisted it, and it clicked, unlocking.
As soon as he cracked the door open, the intense light washed over him. The entire window on the far side of the room glowed. He blinked and kept his rifle pinned on the window, realizing suddenly he hadn’t heard from Bouma or Emanuel.
He couldn’t risk contacting them over the com, not when he didn’t yet know the source of the light. Instead, he moved toward the window, captivated.
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